Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (104 page)

“I know. Just hang on.”

Using the rope for support, he
walked up to level ground half carrying, half dragging Abby along with him, then
knelt, gently laying her on the ground. He untied them both and ordered
Amos
back, collecting the rope as it came, and stopped him a few feet away. He
untied the rope from the hitch and tossed it in back, then lifted Abby, dragged
her around to the seat, and lifted her in.

She cried in pain. “Oh god! My
leg!”

“I know, I’m sorry, but you’re on
emergency O
₂
, and we’ve got just twelve minutes to get you inside,
and the trailer’s still a kilometer away.” He strapped her in, rushed around,
climbed into the driver’s seat, engaged MANUAL CONTROL, backed up, turned
around and headed down the ejecta slope for the Genesis trailer as fast as the
terrain would allow, which wasn’t very fast. Jeff glanced at his watch. “Oh
god, this is gonna be close.”

“Just plug me into
Amos
’ O
₂
.”

“It won’t help. It won’t reduce the
flow from the Purge System, and once activated there’s no way to shut it off.
Just hang on.”

Abby groaned and cried with each
bump.

After what seemed an eternity, Jeff
finally skidded to a halt a few feet from the airlock steps. He checked his
watch – one minute. “Crap!” He punched the quick release on Abby’s shoulder
harness, climbed out, trotted around the rover as fast as could, climbed the
stairs, opened the hatch and returned to Abby just in time to see the sweep
second hand on his watch tick down to zero. He reached to the diverter valve on
the front of her suit and closed it. “Alright, that’s all the air you’ve got.
It won’t last long. Do the best you can.”

She cried. “Jeff, don’t let me
die.”

“I won’t.” He lifted her out of
Amos
and, one step at a time, dragged her backwards up the steps and, finally, into
the airlock. He could hear her wheezing.

“Jeff,” she gasped softly, “I…
can’t… breathe.”

It took almost another minute to
get her turned around in the cramped airlock and seated on the commode. She
started pawing furiously at her helmet neck ring. Jeff slapped her hands away.
“No! There’s no air in here!” While fighting her with one hand, Jeff, shoved
the hatch closed with the other and spun the dogging wheel, then slapped the
cabin REPRESS valve. Abby’s arms went limp and she slumped over. He stared,
bordering on panic, at the cabin pressure gauge. As soon as it reached 4 psi
Jeff rotated the neck ring on Abby’s helmet, yanked it off, and set it on the
deck, then removed his own and checked her. She wasn’t breathing. He sat her
upright, tilted her head back, opened her mouth, took a deep breath, pinched
her nose, pressed his lips over hers, and blew. Nothing. He did it again. Abby
gasped and immediately began breathing on her own. Jeff leaned back against the
bulkhead. “Oh thank God!”

A moment later Abby was again
conscious, and opened her eyes. “Am I alive?”

Jeff smiled and nodded. “Yeah,
you’re alive.”

She started to raise her left arm.
“Oh! Oh, my shoulder hurts.”

“Okay, just sit still. Let me get
out of this suit, then I’ll get you out of yours, and we’ll have a look at
you.”

Forty minutes later, Jeff had Abby
settled into bed, had checked her over and, using the remote, got
Amos
hitched to the Genesis and headed home following the path by which they had
come.

As they bounced over a rock, Abby
let out a little yelp. “Jeff, please, don’t we have anything in here for pain?”

“Yeah, but not until I talk with
Sue, which I’m going to do right now.” He turned on the VHF radio and picked up
his Bluetooth earpiece. “Sue? Gabe? Somebody pickup the phone.”

A moment later, Gabe’s voice
crackled. “Hi. What’s up? How’s it going?”

“Gabe, Abby’s been injured, get
Sue.”

“Is it serious?”

“Yeah, pretty bad, please get Sue
on the radio… now!”

“Oh god. Just a minute.”

Jeff hung onto the truss with one
hand to steady him and held Abby’s hand with the other.

Susan came on the radio. “Jeff, I’m
here. What happened?”

“About an hour ago she slipped off
the crater rim and fell about 50 or 60 feet. She’s got a broken leg for sure
and I think maybe a broken collarbone. And she’s in a great deal of pain.”

“Okay. I’m going to ask some
questions, you just answer them.”

“Alright.”

“Is there any external bleeding?”

“No.”

“Is she conscious?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Is she coherent?”

“Yes.”

“Did she lose consciousness?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. Um, maybe five or
six minutes.”

“Does she exhibit any signs of
amnesia?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t remember the
fall.”

“Alright, check her pupils. Are they
responsive to light, and equally dilated?”

“Hang on.” Jeff grabbed a Mini
Maglite out of the utility drawer and checked Abby’s eyes. “Um, yeah. Yes and
yes.”

“Okay, that’s a good sign. Where’s
the leg fracture?”

“Left leg, just above the knee.
It’s twisted at an odd angle.”

Susan groaned. “Ugh, distal femur.
But it didn’t break the skin?”

“No.”

“Alright. What makes you think her
collarbone may be broken?”

“There’s a lot of bruising and it
doesn’t look right.”

“Okay. I want you to palpate her
abdomen. Does it feel normal, or hard? And does it cause her pain?”

Jeff pressed around Abby’s abdomen.
“Abby, does that hurt at all.”

She sniffed and shook her head.
“No.”

“Good. Sue, it feels normal and she
says it doesn’t hurt.”

“Alright, that’s good. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Her PLSS was damaged and by
the time I got to her, her suit was down to three psi. I disconnected it and
pulled the Purge emergency. That ran out as I was pulling her into the airlock.
She passed out and by the time I got her helmet off, she wasn’t breathing. I
gave her mouth-to-mouth and she came to immediately.”

“How long was she out?”

“I dunno, maybe two minutes.”

“That’s good. Anything else?”

“Yeah, she has a headache.”

“Okay, that’s not surprising. She
probably has a mild concussion. Jeff, hook her up to a biosensor harness and
send me her vitals. Are you on your way back?”

“Yeah, we’re on our way. It took us
six hours to get here, probably take five or so to get back. I’ll hook her up
and get the vitals to you. Take me a few minutes. Sue, she’s in an awful lot of
pain. Can I give her something for it?”

“Yes, I understand, but I need to
see her vital signs first.”

“Okay. Shall I put the vacuum
splint on her leg?”

“No, leave it alone. Just keep her
from moving it. I want to see it before we do anything.”

“Understood. I’ll get back to you
in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Jeff, keep her calm and make
sure she knows she is going to be okay. There’s nothing life-threatening… so
far as I know.”

“Got it. Out.”

Jeff wired Abby to the biosensors
and started transmitting the data to Susan.

Susan came on the radio. “Jeff, her
vital signs are okay. BP, respiration, heart rate are all a little high, but
that’s not surprising under the circumstances. Give her two 10-milligram Norco
tablets. That should help. You can give her two more in four hours, if she
needs them. And get back here as fast as you can.”

“On our way.” He got the Norco and
a glass of water. “Here, take these. They should ease the pain a bit.”

“Norco?”

“Uh huh.”

She whimpered, “I was kind of
hoping for morphine.”

Jeff chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll bet you
were. No, morphine’s only for people that are hurt bad.”

She groaned. “I’m not hurt bad?”

“Not according to Sue.”

“What does she know?”

“I’m gonna tell her you said that.”

“Don’t you dare, she’ll reassemble my
leg backwards.”

He laughed. “Alright. Well, you
just lay back and rest, I’m gonna have a chat with
Amos
about our
itinerary.”

“Huh?”

“Well, this dune sea runs
east-west, and I’m thinking that instead of backtracking we should head west
toward the north end of the plain, following the dune troughs. It should get us
out of this stuff and onto better ground a lot faster. And
Amos
knows
the plain, since he surveyed the whole thing after he landed. Once we’re out of
these hills, he should be able to pick a fast route south back to the station.
It’s farther, but it may be faster and more comfortable for you.”

“Okay. I’m all for that.” She
whimpered and sniffed. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Nah, shit happens. Don’t worry
about it. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, me
too.”

* * *

Susan came into the commons,
shaking her head and looking very glum.

Jeff jumped to his feet. “How bad
is it?”

“Bad. Starting from the top, she
probably has a concussion, but a cranial x-ray doesn’t present anything out of
the ordinary and it’s probably not serious. We’ll just keep an eye on it. She
has a minimally displaced fracture of her left clavicle; in English, a broken
collarbone, but it’s not a bad break and should heal well on its own. She has,
so far as I can tell, no internal organ damage. But, and here’s the big
problem, she has a displaced intra-articular distal femur fracture – a broken
leg, and a very bad one, involving the knee joint.”

Jeff frowned. “What do you mean by…
very bad?”

She bit her lip and looked
pensively at him, then down at Gabe, still seated, and shook her head. “I am
not an orthopedic surgeon and really can’t give you a definitive prognosis at
present but, brace yourselves, if I can’t fix this I may have to amputate.”

Jeff grimaced. “Oh dear God!”

Gabe clutched her face in her hands
and began crying.

Jeff dropped into the sofa beside
Gabe and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay honey, we’re not gonna
let that happen.” He glanced up at Susan. “What do we need to do? What do you
need?”

“I need an orthopedic surgeon.”

Jeff nodded. “Gabe, come on honey,
we need you.”

Gabe wiped her eyes and whimpered,
“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“Get on the emergency channel to
Chrissie, give her a brief explanation, and have her wake people up.”

“Who?”

“The whole goddamn world,
everybody. Tell the DSN we have a life-threatening emergency and we need a
dedicated antenna. Tell Chrissie to bring in all the troops she needs and find
the best orthopedic surgeon in the country and get him or her online to
Newport, and standing by. Susan?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve got some x-rays
which I’ll compress and forward as soon as we’re on an antenna. The surgeon
will probably want more. Make certain they understand both our capabilities and
limitations, and tell them I’m going to require detailed procedures, very
detailed. Pictures would help. And get Rebecca in the MCC, she knows our
medical facilities and capabilities as well as anyone. That’ll save time.”

Jeff helped Gabe up. She nodded.
“Okay, on my way.”

Jeff turned back to Susan. “How’s
she doing?”

“I have her sedated, she is in a
lot of pain. Jeff, I’m not going to let her die, she will live. But her leg, I
don’t know.”

“Understood. What can I do?”

“While we are waiting for a
response from Earth, you might want to pray.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Gabe stuck her head in the lab,
stared at Abby lying on the table, and clutched her chest, gasping.

Jeff glanced up at her. “How’s it
going?”

She caught her breath. “Um, I just
got a WILCO over UHF from Goldstone. We can start sending traffic now; antennas
will be aligned before it gets there.”

Susan nodded. “Good. X-rays and
other vital information are in the outbound folder on the comm server.”

“Okay,” said Gabe, “I’ll get right
on it.”

“Have you heard from Chrissie?”
said Jeff.

“Not yet. She may be waiting for an
antenna.”

“Okay. Let us know.”

“Alright.” Gabe left for the comm
suite.

Jeff turned back to Susan. “Can you
anticipate any needs? Is there anything we can do to get the ball rolling
before we get a response?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh god, I
don’t know. Um… oh hell, forgot.”

“What?”

“They’re going to need something
that provides scale. We need to take another x-ray or two. Um, can you find
something metal, something that will show up on an x-ray that is exactly six
inches long?”

“How about a stainless steel dial
caliper opened to six inches?”

“Excellent. Get it.”

Jeff rummaged around in the lab
tool chest. “Here.”

Susan slipped the digital x-ray
plate beneath the break in Abby’s leg, swung the x-ray head over it, laid the
caliper close beside, and shot. “Perfect. Let me get one more.” She closed the
caliper to three inches, laid it sideways beneath the break just above Abby’s
knee, and took another picture. “Good. Okay, Jeff, can you compress those and
upload them with a brief description to Chrissie?”

“Will do.”

Gabe rushed into the lab. “Chrissie
just replied. She, Heidi and Robert are in the MCC. Rebecca should be there,
well, by now, and most of the rest of the MCC crew that is available are coming
online. She has Dr. Leonard Davidson from the Mayo Clinic online. She’s already
sent him the initial x-rays and is waiting for a reply.”

Susan smiled. “Davidson, huh? Well,
she went right to the top.”

“You know him?” said Jeff.

“No, but I’ve heard of him. He’s
the Chair of Orthopedics at Mayo. They don’t come any better.”